A maintenance manager at one of the largest petroleum refiners in the U.S. noticed that many of their duct heaters were failing at an alarming rate. Each location has hundreds of industrial duct heaters that provide forced flow heat convection. It had become the number one maintenance issue at this location.

A local refinery was injecting a catalyst into their process stream to strip out the propane-impregnated HF gas (mixed gas is a by-product of the FCC process), but the catalyst would only work at temperatures above 385° F. The presence of elevated HF gas downstream of the reactor was causing reduced life in the valves and instrumentation and they were having to replace these elements often. Valin’s process team analyzed the situation and recommended inserting an electric in-line heater upstream of the catalyst injection along with a control panel. The customer agreed and Valin’s team began working on the solution.

A Valin refinery customer planned a maintenance outage and had an urgent need for two critical valve replacements. Valin's technical specialists worked with their top valve supplier to provide a solution to meet the high-pressure requirements and critical delivery needs.

By using higher performing electric actuators from the motion control industry to control valves in the process industries, customers can achieve higher performance and better control for their processes.

High profile accidents such as the Deepwater Horizon, Macondo Prospect, well blowout and explosion that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, and the gas leak in the Elgin Field in the North Sea in 2012, are causing the industry to rethink its approach to pressure monitoring during drilling and production, in order to further improve operational safety.

A major refinery was looking for a way to control the distribution and handling of instrumentation products during a dual turnaround. Valin was able to provide a locking cabinet and tubing rack for each side of the turnaround with on-site restocking capabilities. Valin’s material handling solution took the burden off the refinery’s planners and freed up their time to work on more important tasks. The planners no longer have to control or place restocking PO's.

Valin worked with a refinery that was processing approximately 145,000 barrels (5.7 million gallons) of crude oil per day – enough to fill a 17-foot-deep swimming pool the size of a football field. The refinery has a 2 Column Jet Fuel Clay Treater that came online in 1960 with a treat rate of 750 GPM. This technology is very inefficient and outdated. The nature of this old design does not optimize the contact time of the Jet Fuel with the Clay and often results in Channeling through the Media.

When assessing the filtration needs at a major refinery, one of Valin’s technical specialists discovered that there was no standardization in regard to the filters used in the safety showers and eyewash stations.

A major refinery in the Northwest (with a production capacity of 225,000+ barrels per day) “Fast Tracked” a project to capitalize on receiving Crude Oil supplies via Rail Car from the Oil Boom region in the Dakotas.

A major refinery in California turned to Valin to help them solve a problem with their sample cylinders. This customer has many sample cylinders that are used to transport a process sample from a refinery unit to the lab to test for recipe accuracy. They are using cylinders from multiple suppliers to assemble the final units.

Because coal is dusty, it is common for mining and power plants to minimize the dust by spraying down the coal with a water-based chemical solution. In the colder months of the year, however, this solution causes the coal to freeze together in clumps and stick to the cold walls of the coal chute.

One of the world’s leading manufacturers of industrial gas turbines had a problem that needed solving and Valin® acted as the general contractor for this job providing project management, supervision and all of the cable and components.